Why Ordinary Hindus Should Worry About the Radicalization of their Religion
By
Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
13 January
2022
Like Radical
Islam, Radical Hinduism Will Ultimately Devour Its Own Adherents
Main
Points:
1. Genocidal
calls against Muslims were made at ‘Dharm Sansads’.
2. Muslim women
were auctioned online reminiscent of ISIS’ trade in slaves.
3. Such
anti-Muslim violence may not be new but the state’s response to it is novel.
4. The price of
this Hindu radicalization will ultimately be paid by ordinary Hindus.
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Recent
events in India should put a serious spotlight on the nature of metamorphosis
that Hinduism is undergoing. Anyone concerned with this hallowed philosophical
tradition should take notice as to what is happening in their name. What we are
witnessing is perhaps unprecedented in the nation’s history. Open call to arms
and annihilation of Muslims is being advocated by so called Hindu seers, in
full public view and people and clapping at such murderous appeals. The Dharm Sansads
being held at various places like Haridwar and Raipur, all have one thing in
common: the call to eliminate Muslims or make them into second class citizens.
In this country, where someone can be arrested for a joke that he did not make,
the organizers of Dharm Sansad roam around freely, spreading their poison to
even larger audiences.
Close on
the heels of such genocidal meeting, came the news of Muslim women being
auctioned through an online site. Much like the ISIS would deal and trade in
slaves in the real world, we have a group of young Hindus who want to be part
of the same fantasy. The Hindu right wing obsession with Muslim women’s bodies
has been on display during various anti-Muslim riots which have periodically
occurred within the country. Whether it was Surat, Mumbai or Ahmedabad, Muslim
women’s bodies became the site on and through which Hindu male virility had to
be proven. Centuries of being called effeminate, first by the Muslims and then
by the British, meant that the Hindu male interiorized a deep feeling of
insecurity vis a vis the Muslim male. The only way to prove that they were
masculine enough was to teach a lesson to Muslim women, often in very macabre
fashion.
Feminists
have often sought to portray women as somehow very different from men when it
comes to perpetrating violence. This romantic notion now needs to be debunked.
The online auction of Muslim women was not just the handiwork of men but we
know that at least one Hindu woman was also an equal participant. Among those
not allowing Muslims to pray in Gurgaon is a huge contingent of Hindu women who
act as willing accomplices in this ideological cause. For every Babu Bajrangi,
we always had a Maya Kodnani.
It will be
facile to understand this anti-Muslim bigotry as the product of the current
political dispensation. Its roots lie deep into our polity. There is a tendency
to understand this anti-Muslim hatred through what Muslims have done in the
political and religious sphere. But Hindu violence should not be reduced every
time to some other extraneous factor. This kind of analysis is nothing but a
Hindu right-wing narrative which assumes that Hindus are inherently peaceful
and tolerant as a community. And hence, if they are indulging in violence and
diatribe, it must be the fault of others or they would have been provided into
doing so. This ahistorical understanding fails to appreciate Hindu violence
against certain castes as well as religions such as Buddhism which became
almost obliterated in the land of its birth. Just as Muslim violence needs to
be understood on its own ground; Hindu violence also needs to be explained as
emanating from its politics and traditions.
While it is
important to underline that Hindu violence is not new, it is also important to
point out that the state’s response to it is remarkably novel. Muslim victims
of violence have hardly got justice whether it was Bhagalpur or the Nellie
massacre. But the political culture of the state ensured that such incidents
were at least condemned from the highest offices of the state; that there was a
semblance of statist ritual through which remorse was communicated.
Today, we
have entered a phase in our political history where even such niceties have
been dispensed with. Not only are the highest political offices of the country
silent, even neutral constitutional functionaries appear to be partisan. After
the genocidal calls against Muslims in the Dharma Sansad, it fell upon members
of the civil society to point out that the police had the powers to take suo
motto notice and take disciplinary action against the offenders. Till now, we
have not seen the kind of state action which should have followed what some have
rightly termed as the Adharm Sansad. One is sure that there is political
pressure working on the case, but then one should also be sure that the sole
casualty of such a partisan attitude is only going to be the perception of the
state as a neutral agency. Ultimately, it will be the Hindu majority who will
suffer if the state continues to run on the whims and fancies of few
individuals instead of the rule of law.
It is one
of the deepest fantasies of the Hindu right to become like orthodox Muslims.
Through what is called strategic emulation, they seek to make Hinduism a carbon
copy of semitic religion. The inherent diversity of Hinduism is disliked for
this very reason; that it inhibits the creation of a unified political
community. Although it is early to say, but it appears that Hindu right is
succeeding in its mission. From the wide diversity, in terms of caste, region
and religious practices, a certain brand of Hinduism is arising which is
levelling all such markers. The increasing participation of lower castes and
women seeks to weld this version of Hinduism into a homogenous whole; through
the sole strategy of otherising and demonizing Muslims. We have come to a
situation where perhaps the Hindu society has reached the cusp of
radicalization and only Hindus who think differently can put a stop to it.
The Hindu
society must not forget that the prize of Muslim radicalization was paid by
Muslims themselves. In the short run, Hindu right wing might otherise Muslims.
But in the long run it will be the ordinary Hindus who would pay the prize of
this radicalization.
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A
regular columnist with NewAgeIslam.com, Arshad Alam is a writer and researcher
on Islam and Muslims in South Asia.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-politics/hindus-radicalization-religion/d/126149